Milk Feeds for babies 8+ months

have got a couple of questions for those of you with older babies regarding milk ... solids.

• 1. At what did you start to offer solids before milk? when you made the switch did you cut out one milk feed (i.e. reduce from 4 milk feeds down to 3)? How did your babies react when you starting introducing solids first?
• 2. when did you start introducing morning and afternoon tea on a regular basis?
• 3. By the age of 1 how many milk feeds does your baby have? How many people continued breastfeeding past 1 year old?
• 4. At what age did you start to include your baby in the evening meal?

that's all I can think of at the moment. Ella is going to be 8 months tomorrow and just wondering when I should start changing around her meal times and how to make the change.

TIA for your comments

Cant remeber the exact age Isla was for the answer to the first questions.
Isla still has 3 milk feeds. Plunkt recommend 2 cups (500-600mls) per day over 1 year.
Isla still doesnt eat with us. We have breakfast as a family, and lunch, but she has dinner at 5pm and we cook and eat when shes in bed (6.30pm). We both sit with her while she eats her dinner, and she is happy as with this and eats well. We will review if us not eating with her at the same time, becomes an issue.

I only started doing the food first about a month ago so around 8.5 months with Sam. Sam still isn't keen on breakfast though so is still having a bottle first thing and then breakfast an hour or so later.

I haven't cut out any bottles just because she has the solids first. She just tends to drink less because she has more food in her tummy. She is still having between 5-6 bottles a day, but only taking around 100ml at each feed.

I don't bother offering Morning tea yet,just because she normally has a 2 hour morning sleep around that time, but I normally offer her a biscuit or some fruit in the afternoon around 4ish to keep her going till dinner.

We are the same as Kellz in that we sit with Sam while she eats her dinner at 5.30, but tend to have our dinner later by ourselves. I figure we will continue to do this until she is a bit older and her bed times are adjusted so she can have dinner about 6ish. At the moment she is in bed by 6.30 so doesn't really suit her bedtime routine.

I have always offered solids a good hour after milk just because of the timing of the day and another child lol. I always started the day with milk with Jack and then gave him his breaky, bf and snack for morning tea and then lunch and a drink or water, bf and snack for afternoon tea, then tea and water, bf before bed. Jack didn't even notice the change and the more solids the better.

They say 600ml after 8 months but since your bfing its impossible to tell so just assume shes having that much if shes still eating lots of solids. Just see if she wants to drop a feed, if she doesn't then keep it up.

Jack weaned at 13 months so at one I think he was on 3 bfs and then it slowly went down to none.

We have morning and afternoon tea now but not all the time just when I remember. From memory we started giving Jack our food after one but that was just cos I was too lazy to even try. If she can eat everything in your meal maybe try mashing some up for her. We used to have dinner later than Jack so I would put some in the fridge for his tea the next night.

Hey - Jakes almost 8 months ... so this is what we currently do, and what I'm planning:

6.30/7am BF
8am breakie
9/9.30-10.30/11 nap
11am BF
12ish lunch
afternoon nap really varies - anywhere from 20mins -2hr, usually an hour around 1.30pm
3ish BF
5pm dinner
6.30 bath bottle story and in bed by 7pm.

I give him a piece of fruit or crusket for afternoon tea some days, especially if he has a short nap and the afternoon BF early (started in the last 2 weeks).
From next week - I'm going to gradually drop the 11am BF by giving him morning tea when he wakes from his nap (10.30 usually) and then lunch at 12.30. Will offer one boob after one of those meals - probably after morning tea to start with - til he drops that milk feed. Will offer afternoon tea after the BF at this stage, but will eventually change that to a bottle after a/tea.
I will keep the early morning breastfeed before solids, as he eats well at breakie and thats the one I plan to carry on doing for a while (if he goes to daycare/when the other feeds are all formula). Between the evening bottle of 200-240mls, the morning breastfeed (the same I'd say, if not more) and that afternoon BF, I'm sure he will be getting 600mls.

He won't eat with us til hes over a year I'd say, as he has dinner at 5pm at this stage. I'm guessing he'll be on 2 milk feeds at 1?!?

Hope that helps.

They seem to be doing alot of similar things!

I do that early morning feed in bed and enjoy the cuddles too. Far easier and nicer than getting up to make a bottle, or get breakie ready, as we tend to stay in bed for a bit while DH gets ready for work. Doing it first means if DH has to get him ready for daycare and give him breakie (I'll be starting early as I work on the other side of ak) then I can bf then get myself ready and leave dh to it!

I figure if he is having that bf first thing when hes hungriest and 200-240mls at the end of the day, then it doesn't matter if he ends up not having much milk after afternoon tea when I change that feed to after food in a month or 2, as he will be getting enough milk almost in two feeds (some books say 500-600mls, plunket says 600mls) and some formula with cereal will make up the rest anyway.

As his morning nap pushes out later towards 10/10.30, I will move morning tea to before that nap.

I'm looking forward to dropping another milk feed in the next week or so ... cos he is a nightmare to feed in public now as hes so nosey - far easier to give him food.